New Year's Eve : MK or Epcot ?

[Wishes4ev]

We will be going from the 28th thru the 1st. I am leaning towards being in the Magic Kingdom when the clock strikes 12 on NYE. Which park is better in your opinion as far as fireworks and festivities for a celebration ?

 

[mydisneykids]

We did Epcot last year and loved it.
We went on the 30th to the MK and got to see their NYE preview fireworks and had a ball. They had the DJ up by the castle and my daughters danced until the fireworks.
Then the 31st we spent at Epcot and their fireworks were WAY better, bigger and more festive.
We got the best of both worlds by being able to see both sets of fireworks.

 

[Wishes4ev]

We did Epcot last year and loved it.
We went on the 30th to the MK and got to see their NYE preview fireworks and had a ball. They had the DJ up by the castle and my daughters danced until the fireworks.
Then the 31st we spent at Epcot and their fireworks were WAY better, bigger and more festive.
We got the best of both worlds by being able to see both sets of fireworks.

Thanks , how were the crowds at Mk the night before ?

 

[PRmamiDEdos]

I'm hoping to go to Epcot one year for NYE. I've been to MK for Christmas day but I think I would choose Epcot for NYE b/c at least you can have a champagne toast at midnight.

 

[ScottOKW2K]

Why don't you do both ?

The Magic Kingdom also performs the NYE fireworks show on the 30th. Last year on the 30th and 31st we were able to see the following fireworks shows:

12/30/2010

8:30 Regular MK fireworks from TTC after dining at the Poly.
9:30 Illuminations in Epcot (with holiday tag!)
12:00 MK New Years Eve fireworks from the beach at the Poly. They moved the electrical water pageant floats between the island in the seven seas lagoon and the Poly and did patriotic displays and excellent music.

12/31/2010

7:30 Illuminatioins
11:50 NYE Epcot fireworks display starts. And from our vantage point we could see the MK fireworks in the distance.

Thats five fireworks shows in two days that we saw, and one more indirectly in the distance.

 

[mydisneykids]

MK was crowded but fun.
We got there at about 9 and they took us in behind the scenes and we were let out in tomorrowland.
We watched the show on the stage there and then made our way to the castle.
It was crowded in front of the castle but we had enough room to move a bit and dance. I wish we had waited a bit longer before heading out but it still wasn't that bad. We would do it again in a minute.

Dec. 30th. at MK

It looks worse than it felt.

Dec. 31 at Epcot:

Line for Mexico Boat ride outside of Pavillion.

Extra places to escape crowds.

Get there early and collect fastpasses for later. We didn't plan on riding much.

 

[cleophus12]

It will be crowded no matter which park you choose, but at Epcot there seems to be a bit more room to move around. And the fireworks around the world are fabulous! BTW Epcot usually does their fireworks early in the evening for the crowd who can't stay up, but I wouldn't plan on trying to get into another park after the early fireworks.

 

[Kelblum]

Epcot!! We had the best time on NYE at Epcot a few years ago, I would go again in a heart beat!

 

[Kona65]

We went two years ago, and decided on Epcot. It was wall to wall people, and you could not even see the concrete under your feet. I hear that the MK is just as bad. The main difference would be that you will run into more drunk people at Epcot than at the MK. I would not take my kids to any of the parks during New Years, its just to dangerous.

 

[MoonFaerie]

Epcot. It's not NYE without booze.

 

[tjmw2727]

We did Epcot last year and loved it.
We went on the 30th to the MK and got to see their NYE preview fireworks and had a ball. They had the DJ up by the castle and my daughters danced until the fireworks.
Then the 31st we spent at Epcot and their fireworks were WAY better, bigger and more festive.
We got the best of both worlds by being able to see both sets of fireworks.

We did exactly this in 09 and 08 and last year we did the studios on NYE.

Its really the best of both worlds doing MK on the 30th is just like a NYE preview with less crowds.

IMHO Epcot holds the crowds better, is bigger, more spread out and there is more to do with live entertainment everywhere in addition to the attractions and rides. There is also more food available.

Studios were fun but there were lots of bottlenecks getting from place to place even starting earlier in the evening. I did like the live entertaniment and the Studios were lots of fun and somethjing different for us. I am glad we did a NYE in the studios but this year we will be back to Epcot (with of course the preview at MK on the 30th).

 

[mydisneykids]

We went two years ago, and decided on Epcot. It was wall to wall people, and you could not even see the concrete under your feet. I hear that the MK is just as bad. The main difference would be that you will run into more drunk people at Epcot than at the MK. I would not take my kids to any of the parks during New Years, its just to dangerous.

Our group was myself my DD17 and DD14 as my DH and DS10 were at a hockey tournament and my DD17 has just performed in the candlelight processional a few nights earlier.

We used a few fastpasses from earlier in the day, shopped, and hung out on the grass by club cool. We had a late dinner at LeCelier and watched the fireworks from outside Canada.

We decided to do a lap around the lagoon and only had crowd issues at bottlenecks by Mexico and Italy. We did not want to do that again as we had to lock hands to stay together. We only saw people that had a bit too much to drink at the dance area in China and even that was apperent to me as I was standing watching my girls dance and who was around them. It was not over the top.

Other than that there were crowds but nothing that made us feel unsafe or uncomfortable and Disney tried to make as many open areas without crowds as possible. I would not do it with very young children but would not hesitate to do it with kids a bit older.

I big suggestion would be to stay in a hotel that you can walk to from the park you are going to. We had been staying at Saratoga Springs and switched to the Swan for the night before and after so we could come and go from Epcot and didn't have to deal with traffic or busses at the end of the night. I had heard horror stories and didn't want to worry about that after a long day and late night in the parks.

 

[Wishes4ev]

We did Epcot last year and loved it.
We went on the 30th to the MK and got to see their NYE preview fireworks and had a ball. They had the DJ up by the castle and my daughters danced until the fireworks.
Then the 31st we spent at Epcot and their fireworks were WAY better, bigger and more festive.
We got the best of both worlds by being able to see both sets of fireworks.

This is what I am leaning towards. That sounds like a great idea. how was the weather like during those two days ? Also what time did you get into the parks? I hear they close the entrances down a few hours after opening ?

 

[dizneedrmr]

We usually do MK fireworks on the 30th and then HS for NYE, but HS was getting a bit old for us. This year we did MK on NYE because my sister was sick on the 30th and wasn't able to see the fireworks like usual. It was really crowded in MK, the most we've ever felt like we had to deal with, but oh so worth it! Next year we'll be doing MK for the 30th again and then EPCOT for NYE. I'm so looking forward to the NYE celebration at EPCOT. However, I've heard that it's more 'adult' (as in adult beverages and all) than HS or MK. So perhaps if you have younger children, it might be better to dance the night away at MK for NYE. Even at 29 and 25 years old, my sister and I had a blast at MK on NYE!

 

[whacked]

Last year we did the NY show at MK on the 30th and then went to Epcot on NYE.

We walked back to the bridge near the UK and had a great view. You could walk in to Epcot on NYE, but I'm pretty sure that the MK closed (to new entry) pretty early on NYE and I don't know if they opened it up again.

We didn't really want to spend 14 hours in the MK with little ability to move around or experience anything other than long bathroom lines.

I believe they added a show at HS on NYE too, but I wasn't interested in that one.


There were a number of fairly tanked adults (at Epcot NYE), but they were more loud than anything else. I did not see any problems. When we left, they did let us out through the back which was interesting and weird. Strange street winding through greenhouses, etc.

 

[mydisneykids]

This is what I am leaning towards. That sounds like a great idea. how was the weather like during those two days ? Also what time did you get into the parks? I hear they close the entrances down a few hours after opening ?

We talked to people last year that came into Epcot after dinner. I thought of walking back to hotel for a bit and we would have been ok but didn't want to miss out on getting back in. So we got to the parks at about 10:30 a.m. and started to collect fastpasses and ride some rides we didn't mind waiting for.
It did make for a long day, we could have come later but wanted those fastpasses for later in the evening.

The weather was great but it could go either way as earlier in the week it was a wind chill of 27 for our MK EMH in the morning.

 

[LisaRay]

Well if you don't have to be IN a park I'll tell you what we did this year and we had a blast!
It was a somewhat last minute plan and we were doing the free dining which didn't start until New Years Day so for NYE we had no park passes and due to last minute plans we had no dinner ressies for NYE so we went to the Boardwalk and arrived around 7:00-7:30pm and we walked around a bit enjoying the entertainment then we got pizza from the walk up window and sat on the Boardwalk wtih a view of all the excitement and entertainment while we ate our dinner. After that they were handing out hats and noise makers to everyone and the DJ was playing we browsed some shops waiting for more dancers to join in and by the time we came out of the shops it was maybe 9pm or so but there were tons of people dancing we joined in and had a great evening. We also got to see the Epcot fireworks later.

If if got back at that time of year even with park passes i wouldnt' hesitate to spend my NYE at the Boardwalk.

 

[Wishes4ev]

When do they stop lighting up the castle ? I would love to be there to see the light up ceremony.